One of the most popular websites in the world has reportedly been hit by a ‘year-long’ cyber attack.

Pornography site Pornhub has allegedly fallen victim to the attack which has been installing malware onto visitors’ computers.

It is not a website that many will admit browsing, but it’s believed that “millions” of people have fallen victim to the attack.

According to the Coventry Telegraph, research by cyber security company Proofpoint reveals a massive cyber attack using 'malvertising' which presented fake adverts for web browser updates to people visiting Pornhub.

Proofpoint claims the attack had been going on for a year and had 'millions' of potential victims in the UK, US, Canada and Australia.

Hackers have reportedly been at work for a year on the Pornhub attack (Image: supershabashnyi)

The hack was carried out by a group known as KovCoreG, Proofpoint said, who hoped to infect users with an ad fraud malware known as Kovter.

This type of malicious software is traditionally used as a form of online advertising fraud to generate money through clicks on fake adverts.

In some cases, a "clickbot" is installed which then requests and interacts with random adverts online.

In the case of Pornhub, Proofpoint said users were shown fake adverts urging them to click to download a new version or Flash update to their web browser - but would instead infect their computers.

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Proofpoint warned that this technique of tricking users into clicking on fake adverts and infecting themselves was effective, and had the potential to reach "millions of web surfers" if used elsewhere.

"While the payload, in this case, is ad fraud malware, it could just as easily have been ransomware, an information stealer, or any other malware," the company said.

"Regardless, threat actors are following the money and looking to more effective combinations of social engineering, targeting, and pre-filtering to infect new victims at scale."